wicking beds Archives - Eat MY Shrubs

Posted on February 16, 2022February 23, 2022 by Nick Johnson

Wicking Beds With Greenhouse Tops

Wicking Beds With Greenhouse Tops – In Permaculture, they teach about zones, and realizing where things should be to make your life easier. In order to make this small space big, we need to utilize every inch of space, and everything has to serve more than 1 purpose. Another principle of Permaculture is stacking functions. These beds will double as firewood shelter. By the back door, for those cold winter days, when you don’t want to go far to get more wood. We will plant in them things that we use a lot of in the summer. Things that are cold hardy for the shoulder seasons, under the cold-frames. I do not think that these will allow for 4 season growing, but one never knows from season to season. They will definitely extend the growing season greatly.

Wicking Beds With Greenhouse Tops – Part of Our Urban Homestead Project

These raised beds are the wicking beds in the “Wicking Beds Piped Together” page. There is a full description of the build of the garden beds there. For the covers, greenhouses, cold-frames, whatever you want to call them. Here is how I constructed them at a very low cost.

Being flexible with the design

Being flexible with the design is key to the low cost build. The original idea was to build all of the back walls with 2 x 6’s. Well, I forgot how low my supply of 2 x 6’s was. So, the first one (in the first picture above) is built from 2 X 6’s. The rest are planks on a plywood backing.

Less thermal mass, sure, but I have pallet wood. I have the piece of MDF or whatever you call this stuff. Chip board, flake board, plywood. It will work. Right now the gardens are open to the elements so, good, better, best. I have plans to paint the wood, and add some dark rocks for heat exchange. So, this is just another step.

Thinking About Positioning

These are going to face South and sit against the house. Therefore, the back (North) wall of the greenhouse is solid. As is the East wall. To catch the afternoon Sun’s heat. Angles are not my strong suite, so I kept the lid angle at a 45 degrees, to keep it easy. Total back wall height is 19″. The front wall ends up about 7″.

The West, and South side will get the most Sun, and those sides will get a clear plastic covering. For this side wall, I just framed in a similar shape as the 2 x 6 wall. This is where the 45 degree angle comes in handy. The beds are 12″ across, so that’s the width (or length depending on which piece your talking about) of the bottom piece.

The front is a basic connecting piece. Nothing fancy here. I had to use 2 pieces to make the length. Ideally 1 piece would be a nicer finish, but again, I’m flexible with the design.

The hinges are nice, but not 100% necessary, I guess. I have hinges from previous projects, so we’re going to put them on.

There is foam ends designed for this type of roof. But, I couldn’t find any around me. I carved the pattern out of foam for a metal corrugated roof. The plastic ends available for these roofs are not good, in my opinion. Making these foam ends didn’t take too long, so I still recommend the foam. It’s the draft I am trying to stop as much as I can. Keep the warm air in.

Wicking Beds With Greenhouse Top Needs A Top

For the lid, it’s a square frame. Pre-drilling the screw holes makes this part much easier. Pallet wood tends to be dry and beat up. Making it prone to cracking. The plastic top will help make this sturdy. The screws holding the plastic were not pre-drilled because they are not deep. There is just a lot of them.

To ensure there is a good seal around the lid, weather stripping was installed. The lids are not air tight, but the limit of cold air coming in is key. Especially to extend the season as long s possible.

The corrugated plastic roofing came from a previous project. I have stored it for literally 10 years waiting to use it like this! I cut it to length so water is allowed to run off the roof over the front edge. There will be plants in the ground in front of these beds eventually. Those plants can have that water. These beds will be fed with water from the downspout. Just the final hook up to the downspout, some trim work, and paint to be done in the Spring. Good to go.

Posted on March 26, 2021March 15, 2022 by Nick Johnson

Spring 2021 – Let’s Rethink How We Garden

spring 2021

Organic Land Care & Garden Maintenance

Residential backyard with pond in the foreground organic lawn spring 2021

Self-watering garden bed on a back deck organic lawn spring 2021

Land Care Organically for Spring 2021

The name Eat MY Shrubs came from the idea that we can plant beautiful gardens that are completely edible!

Growing food does not have to be in a rectangular shaped, tilled-row garden. In fact, the best gardens are interplanted species, or polycultures.

This is because some plants are only there to benefit the plants that we really want. They may attract beneficial insects, or fool herbaceous animals away from other plants. Also, all this can be achieved without the use of harmful chemicals. Practices that destroy (what we now have come to realize is) the delicate balance of life in the soil, can also be a thing of the past.

Spending time outside on your property, no matter the size or setting, has a positive effect on your health and well being. Choosing to practice organic land care is not only important if your growing food. Ornamental gardens, meant to be a relaxing setting, can be anything but. Especially if your are spraying chemicals everywhere to make it look good and keep the mosquitos away.

Endless pulling of plants and spraying compacted ground is not going to keep the tap roots like thistle and dandelions away. But, relieving the compaction and improving the microbial life, that increase the water and air holding ability of the soil, that will. It just takes a bit of time.

Using organic, regenerative practices for Spring 2021

By using organic, regenerative practices, the soil begins to come alive once again. These rushed practices and instant remedies to our properties over the years have stripped most of the life away from the soil. There is endless evidence of this. However, every spring herbicides and pesticides, unnecessary fertilizers and enhancers, are sprayed and sprinkled all over the soil. Killing many beneficial animals, fungi, and bacteria. They then work all summer to recover their population. Freeze or go dormant in the winter, and be bombarded again in the spring with another dose.

Organic & regenerative gardening teaches that everything on the landscape is there for a reason. Once you realize what that reason is. Altering something in the land to discourage or encourage what we want, will be much less daunting, and deadly. We must then work with the garden to come to some sort of agreement. Give the microbes and fungi the food they need. And then deprive the microbes and fungi that we do not want of their food. Stacking the deck for the beneficial life to win. Then in turn, we get the results we desire, or some form of them.

“Not only are they beautiful, but you can Eat MY Shrubs”

Posted on December 20, 2020December 20, 2020 by Nick Johnson

The Goal Achieved!!

The Goal

Last January I set a modest goal of doubling the traffic on the website www.eatmyshrubs.com. I had learned a lot in 2019 about website development and content, and I was sure that I could do it. The numbers are not large. There were 323 visitors and 705 page views in 2019. Probably the same number that Amazon has in the time it takes to type 323, but that is not the point. I am not competing with anyone. I started the website in 2014 and did not have an actual human on it until 2017, when I started to take it seriously and saw the use in having a website. That is when I started to learn about the inner workings of a website.

It can be a whole other world, with its own language and slang. When you get up in the morning to work on your latest addition, only to find the whole site is down. Trying to figure out why, how to fix it and prevent it from happening again, can be like falling down a rabbit hole at times.

The Modern Day “The Butcher, The Baker & Candlestick Maker”

Running your own business in this age is a daunting task even once it is established. Building a business is not for the faint of heart. After working all day and week doing the actual physical work, you then have to do the “business” side of things. Invoicing and estimating, planning and coordinating, marketing and sales. My wife (who also runs her own separate business) and I chuckle a bit at the mention of a weekend. Whats a weekend?

As an organic gardener with many years of landscaping and earthworks experience, website development and maintenance was not, and is not, my forte. Heck I used spelling and grammar correct twice on that past sentence, but here it is.

Back in October when I finally surpassed the views goal of 1410, double the 705 for 2019, I took a screen shot of my WordPress stats page. I had reached the visitor milestone a few weeks before, but I waited until both goals were reached to take the pic. Super Pumped!!

Lets Not Stop There

So I thought at 864 in October, lets see if we can get 1000 visitors and 2000 views. The goal was reached already of doubling the previous years numbers, so why not right? I do think the 2000 views may be a bit lofty, but yesterday, with 11 days to spare!

BAM!!!!!

1000 visitors. I can’t thank everyone enough. The coolest part of having a website for me is this below:

As one might expect, most of the traffic is coming from North America. Thank You fellow North Americans! But, of the 195 or so countries in the world. 61 of them are represented on this map. 61 countries!!! Thats so cool!

THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!

The Goal 2021

So what’s next? Well, we moved! Still located and based out of High River, Canada, we moved to a bigger location with room to expand both (Eat My Shrubs Organic Land Care & DJ Wellness Consulting) of our businesses.

Consider these some of the before pictures from our yard. Check out the website for future blog posts and follow me on Instagram to watch the development of this bare, canine destroyed lot into something (hopefully) beautiful, organic, and self-sustaining.

As far as website goals. Lets try for 2000 visitors from 98 countries in 2021. I think we can make it happen. Woo Hoo!!

If you are still reading this, happy holidays wherever your are, be healthy, and all the best in 2021!!

Not only are they beautiful. You can Eat My Shrubs!

Posted on May 14, 2020December 27, 2021 by Nick Johnson

Organic Garden Sprays

Organic Garden Sprays…

Garden pest sprays do not have to be toxic to everything. Most of the sprays that are available are just that. They are broad spectrum pesticides, which means they kill everything. Good bugs and bad.

Organic land care has a more direct approach when it comes to controlling pests in the garden.

Remember: EVERYTHING IS THERE FOR A REASON!

Some insects are on this planet, in part, to eat weaker plants so they are not consumed by animals further up the food chain (that’s us).

It is only when the populations get out of balance that we need to step in and adjust things. When that happens, here are some concoctions that will help keep specific pests (not all of them insects) from throwing off the balance of your garden.

The best long term solution to a healthy garden, is healthy soil. Insects are attracted to the weaker plants. Plants that are properly placed in the garden for optimum sun and water for that plant, will be less likely to be attacked by insects than one that is struggling for sunlight, or water. Also, proper nutrition is needed. Not just N-P-K, but all the micronutrients as well. Something you would find in a good quality compost.

Click on any of the links for an Organic Garden Sprays recipe.

Flea Beetles

Squirrels

Cats

Dogs

Aphids

All Purpose Insect Spray

For more information. or to chat about something specific, check out

www. eatmyshrubs.com

Not only are they beautiful. You can Eat MY Shrubs!

*A special note on the ingredients.

By and large, these sprays work against the strong sense of smell that larger garden pests have. The insect sprays are more masking, or hiding the desired plants by making them “look” like other plants to the insect. As such, be sure to buy quality ingredients. Organic garlic is more flavourful to us, as an example, and in turn will be smellier to the deer. Without breaking the bank of course.

Posted on April 29, 2020January 9, 2022 by Nick Johnson

Water Regulating Garden Bed

Water Regulating Garden Bed – They are also referred to as self-watering beds. But, this is misleading. They are self regulating. They will only fill so much before draining. However, they do still require water input. The result of the water being stored under the soil, is less water wastage due to evaporation. The plant roots are also being drawn deeper into the soil. This action will make them stronger and more drought tolerant.

Usually raised garden beds, wicking beds are simply a style of garden bed. They use a method of gardening where the garden bed has its own reservoir of water under the soil. This is achieved by placing a waterproof barrier in the frame of the bed. Then filling it with material that promotes the soils natural tendency to wick moisture up.

A wicking bed primarily consists of 3 layers. The container (usually a raised garden bed, but not necessary), the reservoir and the planting/wicking material. The main container could be anything from a small potter to a large field. Literally, anything sturdy that will hold water.

Water Regulating Garden Bed – Enhanced Raised Garden Beds

The basic idea is that the water “wicks”. The water is pulled up from below into the empty pore spaces in the planting soil. This is known as capillary action. The difference in pressure in the soil allows the water to raise. A good illustration of this is a river bank. Look at the soil. You will notice it wet about a foot above the water level of the river. That’s wicking in action.

The reservoirs are the same as rain barrels in principle. From the overflow, the water can go into another bed. They can be plumbed together on the same grade, though the piping may get in the way of access. Therefore, it is much simpler design have the water flow down hill from one bed to the next.

To store and use as much rainwater as possible, before it leaves your property is the target.

Once you decide which container you want to use, filling it up is what makes it a “wicking bed”. What I do, is keep everything within 2 feet. That is 1 foot for the reservoir material, and 1 foot for the growing material. Most vegetables and annuals that like moist soil, will do just fine in 1 foot of beautiful soil. Especially when it is kept just at the moisture level they like.

filled up with soil wicking beds raised garden bed

Water Regulating Garden Bed – Some things to remember.

1. You want to keep the roots of plants, especially any perennials, out of any pipe installed or they will eventually clog it.

2. Water will only wick up so high, and not all soil materials wick the same.

3. Plant roots can only sense the water so far. If there is a space between how far up the water will wick and how far down your sprouts’ roots can “smell”, then things won’t work.

4. As the growing material absorbs the water, the soil level will go down. Have extra handy for a top-up before planting.

Check out the Wicking Bed pages for more information, descriptions, walk through a build, and then, see it all in action.

Tag: wicking beds

Wicking Beds With Greenhouse Tops